{"id":3778,"date":"2015-05-14T06:24:44","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T06:24:44","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-04-12T11:55:52","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T09:55:52","slug":"pre-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxalbania.org\/2020\/en\/2015\/05\/14\/pre-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana,geneva; color: #000000;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The paschal season of the Church is preceded by the season of <strong>Great Lent<\/strong>, which is itself preceded by its own liturgical preparation. The first sign of the approach of Great Lent comes five Sundays before its beginning. On this Sunday the Gospel reading is about <strong>Zacchaeus<\/strong> the tax-collector. It tells how Christ brought salvation to the sinful man and how his life was greatly changed simply because he \u201csought to see who Jesus was\u201d (<em>Lk 19:3<\/em>). The desire and effort to see Jesus begins the entire movement through lent towards Easter. It is the first movement of salvation. <br \/> <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana,geneva; color: #000000;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The following Sunday is that of the <strong>Publican and the Pharisee<\/strong>. The focus here is on the two men who went to the Temple to pray\u2014one a pharisee who was a very decent and righteous man of religion, the other a publican who was a truly sinful tax-collector who was cheating the people. The first, although genuinely righteous, boasted before God and was condemned, according to Christ. The second, although genuinely sinful, begged for mercy, received it, and was justified by God (<em>Lk 18:9<\/em>). The meditation here is that we have neither the religious piety of the pharisee nor the repentance of the publican by which alone we can be saved. We are called to see ourselves as we really are in the light of Christ\u2019s teaching, and to beg for mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana,geneva; color: #000000;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The next Sunday in the preparation for Great Lent is the <strong>Sunday of the Prodigal Son<\/strong>. Hearing the parable of Christ about God\u2019s loving forgiveness, we are called to come to ourselves\u201d as did the prodigal son, to see ourselves as being \u201cin a far country\u201d far from the Father\u2019s house, and to make the movement of return to God. We are given every assurance by the Master that the Father will receive us with joy and gladness. We must only \u201carise and go,\u201d confessing our selfinflicted and sinful separation from that \u201chome\u201d where we truly belong (<em>Lk 15:11-24<\/em>).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana,geneva; color: #000000;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The next Sunday is called <strong>Meatfare Sunday<\/strong> since it is officially the last day before Easter for eating meat. It commemorates Christ\u2019s parable of the <strong>Last Judgment<\/strong> (<em>Mt 25:31-46<\/em>). We are reminded this day that it is not enough for us to see Jesus, to see ourselves as we are, and to come home to God as his prodigal sons. We must also be his sons by following Christ, his only-begotten divine Son, and by seeing Christ in every man and by serving Christ through them. Our salvation and final judgment will depend upon our deeds, not merely on our intentions or even on the mercies of God devoid of our own personal cooperation and obedience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana,geneva; color: #000000;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &#8230; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and in prison and you visited me. For truly I say to you, if you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me (Mt 25).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana,geneva; color: #000000;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We are saved not merely by prayer and fasting, not by \u201creligious exercises\u201d alone. We are saved by serving Christ through his people, the goal toward which all piety and prayer is ultimately directed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana,geneva; color: #000000;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Finally, on the eve of Great Lent, the day called <strong>Cheesefare Sunday<\/strong> and <strong>Forgiveness Sunday<\/strong>, we sing of Adam\u2019s exile from paradise. We identify ourselves with Adam, lamenting our loss of the beauty, dignity and delight of our original creation, mourning our corruption in sin. We also hear on this day the Lord\u2019s teaching about fasting and forgiveness, and we enter the season of the fast forgiving one another so that God will forgive us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana,geneva; color: #000000;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses (Mt 6:14-18).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The paschal season of the Church is preceded by the season of Great Lent, which is itself preceded by its own liturgical preparation. The first sign of the approach of Great Lent comes five Sundays before its beginning. On this Sunday the Gospel reading is about Zacchaeus the tax-collector. It tells how Christ brought salvation to the sinful man and how his life was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1878],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-church-year-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pre-Lent - Kisha Orthodh\u03bfkse Autoqefale e Shqip\u00ebris\u00eb<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orthodoxalbania.org\/2020\/en\/2015\/05\/14\/pre-lent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pre-Lent - Kisha Orthodh\u03bfkse Autoqefale e Shqip\u00ebris\u00eb\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The paschal season of the Church is preceded by the season of Great Lent, which is itself preceded by its own liturgical preparation. 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